Artificial intelligence South Korea martial law

Bogus articles on South Korean president's impeachment trial made with 'fake news generator' spread online

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As South Korea's Constitutional Court deliberated on the fate of impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol, social media posts shared fabricated reports churned out by an AI-powered "fake news generator" about the release of the verdict and protests against him. The articles -- initially labelled as generated by artificial intelligence and entirely fictitious -- were shared on social media without the disclaimer, but AFP was able to trace them to a platform which says they were created using AI tool ChatGPT. 

"[Exclusive] Most join pro-impeachment protests just to get free meals," reads a Korean-language Threads post shared on March 15, 2025.

It includes a screenshot of what appears to be a news report with the same headline and an image credited to "Korea Press".

Similar claims circulated on X and Facebook -- where it has been seen more than 190,000 times -- as well as on South Korean forums such as Ilbe, Hotge and Nate Pann.

Some users appeared to believe the screenshot showed a genuine news report.

"It seems the rumour that homeless people are being mobilised is true," read a comment in one of the posts.

Another said: "They need to go get their rations as that's the communist way after all."

Another article that falsely claims that the Constitutional Court would announce its decision on March 17 was also shared on Telegram, Facebook, Kakao Story and Yuga Crew.

Screenshots of the false posts, taken on March 20, 2025

The posts were shared as the suspended Yoon faced hearings before the court's judges who will determine whether to uphold his impeachment over his martial law decree in December 2024 that plunged the country into political turmoil (archived link).

Despite experts predicting a verdict by mid-March, the court has yet to decide -- making Yoon's case the longest deliberation in its history.

The president's supporters and opponents have protested, with one side demanding the court to reinstate him and the other asking him to be removed from office immediately (archived link).

But neither of the news articles that circulated online are genuine.

A combination of reverse image and keyword search on Google led to both articles published on a website called "Breaking News Korea" (archived links here and here). 

They both contain text saying they were "written by ChatGPT" and "not based on a real event" but the false posts left out this disclaimer.

The articles generated with this AI tool all consist of four sentences, with the last one trailing off with an ellipsis, in an apparent clickbait attempt to entice users to click a link to read a full article which does not exist.

Screenshot comparison between the false posts (left) and the articles as seen on the Breaking News Korea website (right)

The pages also included a warning: "You fell for phishing news... But you can't be the only one falling for it!"

It then directed readers to a link for a "fake news generator" on the same website.

Screenshots from the Breaking News Korea website, with the AI-generated content disclaimer highlighted by AFP

Users can enter a headline, select from categories "breaking news", "exclusive", "comprehensive" and "news", pick a header image and then click the "Generate fake news" button to get a completely fabricated report complete with links.

A note at the bottom of the page states fake news articles that "deceive more than 1,000 people will win a 50,000 won ($34) cultural coupon".

Updated to add metadata 
March 31, 2025 Updated to add metadata

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